Chapter 2: E-Mail (3 of 6) -- Alternate readers: ELM and PINE

     The "mail" program is actually a very powerful one and a Netwide
standard, at least on Unix computers.  But it can be hard to figure out
-- you can type a question mark to get a list of commands, but these may
be of limited use unless you're already familiar with Unix. Fortunately,
there are a couple of other mail programs that are easier to use.

ELM
~~~~
     Elm is a combination mailbox and letter-writing system that uses
menus to help you navigate through mail.  Most Unix-based host systems
now have it online. To use it, type

                elm

and hit enter.  You'll get a menu of your waiting mail, along with a list
of commands you can execute, that will look something like this:


       Mailbox is '/usr/spool/mail/adamg' with 38 messages [ELM 2.3 PL11]


     1   Sep 1  Christopher Davis  (13)   here's another message.
     2   Sep 1  Christopher Davis  (91)   This is a message from Eudora
     3   Aug 31 Rita Marie Rouvali (161)  First Internet Hunt !!! (fwd)
     4   Aug 31 Peter Scott/Manage (69)   New File <UK077> University of Londo
     5   Aug 30 Peter Scott/Manage (64)   New File <DIR020> X.500 service at A
     6   Aug 30 Peter Scott/Manage (39)   New File <NET016> DATAPAC Informatio
     7   Aug 28 Peter Scott/Manage (67)   Proposed Usenet group for HYTELNET n
     8   Aug 28 Peter Scott/Manage (56)   New File <DIR019> JANET Public Acces
     9   Aug 26 Helen Trillian Ros (15)   Tuesday
     10  Aug 26 Peter Scott/Manage (151)  Update <CWK004> Oxford University OU


   You can use any of the following commands by pressing the first character;
 d)elete or u)ndelete mail,  m)ail a message,  r)eply or f)orward mail,  q)uit
    To read a message, press <return>.  j = move down, k = move up, ? = help

     Each line shows the date you received the message, who sent it, how
many lines long the message is, and the message's subject.
     If you are using VT100 emulation, you can move up and down the menu
with your up and down arrow keys.  Otherwise, type the line number of the
message you want to read or delete and hit enter.
     When you read a message, it pauses every 24 lines, instead of
scrolling until it's done.  Hit the space bar to read the next page. You
can type a lower-case "r" to reply or a lower-case "q" or "i" to get back
to the menu (the I stands for "index").
     At the main menu, hitting a lower-case "m" followed by enter will
let you start a message.  To delete a message, type a lower-case "d".
You can do this while reading the message.  Or, if you are in the menu,
move the cursor to the message's line and then hit D.
     When you're done with Elm, type a lower-case "q".  The program will
ask if you really want to delete the messages you marked. Then, it will
ask you if you want to move any messages you've read but haven't marked
for deletion to a "received" file.  For now, hit your n key.
     Elm has a major disadvantage for the beginner. The default text
editor it generally calls up when you hit your "r" or "m" key is often a
program called emacs. Unixoids swear by emacs, but everybody else almost
always finds it impossible.  Unfortunately, you can't always get away
from it (or vi, another text editor often found on Unix systems), so
later on we'll talk about some basic commands that will keep you from
going totally nuts.

PINE
~~~~
     Pine is based on elm but includes a number of improvements that make
it an ideal mail system for beginners.   Like elm, pine starts you with a
menu.  It also has an "address book" feature that is handy for people
with long or complex e-mail addresses. Hitting A at the main menu puts
you in the address book, where you can type in the person's first name
(or nickname) followed by her address. Then, when you want to send that
person a message, you only have to type in her first name or nickname,
and pine automatically inserts her actual address. The address book also
lets you set up a mailing list.  This feature allows you to send the same
message to a number of people at once.
     What really sets pine apart is its built-in text editor, which looks
and feels a lot more like word-processing programs available for MS-DOS
and Macintosh users.  Not only does it have word wrap (a revolutionary
concept if ever there was one, it also has a spell-checker and a search
command. Best of all, all of the commands you need are listed in a
two-line mini-menu at the bottom of each screen.  The commands look like
this:

               ^W Where is

The little caret is a synonym for the key marked "control" on your
keyboard.  To find where a particular word is in your document, you'd hit
your control key and your W key at the same time, which would bring up a
 prompt  asking you for the word to look for.
     Some of pine's commands are a tad peculiar (control-V for "page
down" for example), which comes from being based on a variant of emacs
(which is utterly peculiar).  But again, all of the commands you need are
listed on that two-line mini-menu, so it shouldn't take you more than a
couple of seconds to find the right one.
     To use pine, type

               pine

at the  command line  and hit enter.  It's a relatively new program, so
many systems do not yet have it online.  But it's so easy to use, you
should probably send e-mail to your system administrator urging him to
get it!